The first part of this volume comprises a philosophical portrait of Dilthey, explaining his relationship to the philosophers with whom he was primarily concerned: Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Comte, the New Kantians, Husserl and Heidegger. In this way his own position in the history of philosophy is defined. The second part of the volume turns to Dilthey's influence on the sciences. His thinking was received in very different areas - in the theory of the humanities, historiography, sociology, literary studies and aesthetics, psychology and anthropology, educational science and natural philosophy. Although Dilthey is regarded as a philosopher of life and is occasionally criticised for being an irrationalist, he was a philosopher of science who took full account of the emergence of the modern empirical sciences and endeavoured to build them a solid foundation. His propositions continue to have an influence today and can still be considered valid.

Studium der Philosophie, Germanistik, Ev. Theologie u.a. an den Universitäten Münster und Tübingen. 1968: Erste Philologische Staatsprüfung (Münster) 1970: Promotion (Münster) 1979: Habilitation (Bochum). Lehrstuhlvertretungen in Berlin und Bochum. Professur für »Geschichte und Theorie der Geisteswissenschaften« (Stiftungsprofessur, Startfinanzierung: VW-Stiftung), Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Seit 1999: Dekan der Fakultät für Philosophie, Pädagogik und Publizistik.